I Paid My Wife $150,000,000 To Divorce Me So I Could Marry My Ex—3 Years Later, One Photo Of Her Flower Shop Exposed The Dark Secret I Left Behind! / Chapter 6 / 100

Chapter 6 - The Gates of Blackwood

The rain in Maine was different from the rain in Chicago. It was bitter, salted with ocean spray, driven by a howling northeaster that whipped the pines along the coast into frantic, bending silhouettes.

Alexander sat in the passenger seat of a rented black SUV, driving down the narrow coastal highway outside Bar Harbor. Beside him, Kane drove in tense, watchful silence.

They rounded the final curve of the pine forest.

Ahead, the road terminated at a massive, twenty-foot wrought-iron gate set between towering granite pillars. Above the gate, carved into the stone, was the Vance family crest: an anchor wrapped in laurel leaves.

Beyond the gate, a winding asphalt driveway disappeared into the mist toward the rocky point where the great stone manor stood against the crashing waves.

Kane stopped the SUV fifty feet from the barrier. Two armed guards in dark tactical weather gear stepped out of a stone gatehouse, their assault rifles slung across their chests, their hands resting on their sidearms.

"Stay in the vehicle, Mr. Moretti," Kane muttered, reaching for the door handle. "Let me speak to the detail commander."

"No," Alexander said.

He kicked open the passenger door, stepping out into the freezing deluge.

The wind ripped at his wool coat, icy rain immediately soaking his hair and plastering his white shirt to his chest. He didn't care. He walked straight toward the iron gates, his hands empty, raised in the air.

"Halt!" the lead guard shouted, stepping forward, his hand unholstering a Taser. "This is private property! Turn your vehicle around immediately!"

"My name is Alexander Moretti!" Alexander yelled over the roar of the ocean crashing against the cliffs below. "I am here to see Claire Bennett! Tell Gabriel Vance that Alexander is at the gate!"

The guard didn't lower his weapon. He tapped his earpiece, speaking in low, rapid bursts into his throat mic.

For two minutes, Alexander stood in the freezing mud, shivering violently, the rain blinding him. He didn't move an inch. He would have stood there until hypothermia stopped his heart.

Then, with a heavy, pneumatic hiss, the center hydraulic bolt of the iron gate disengaged.

The massive gates slowly swung inward.

A sleek black Range Rover drove through from the estate side, stopping ten feet from Alexander. The rear door opened.

Gabriel Vance stepped out, holding a large black umbrella, completely impervious to the wind. He wore an oilcloth jacket over a dark wool sweater, looking down at Alexander with cold, clinical scrutiny.

"You're a fool, Alexander," Gabriel said, his voice easily carrying over the storm. "You flew eight hundred miles to drown in my driveway?"

"Where is she, Gabriel?" Alexander begged, taking a step forward, his voice cracking, all pride, all arrogance, all billion-dollar posturing completely stripped away. "Just let me see her for five minutes. Let me look at my son. If she tells me to leave... if she looks me in the eye and tells me she hates me... I will turn around, sign every asset transfer your lawyers draft, and never speak her name again. But I need to hear it from her."

Gabriel watched him for a long moment. He looked at Alexander’s soaked clothes, the raw, bleeding desperation in his eyes, the total collapse of the man who had once strutted through Chicago boardrooms like an emperor.